At the lower levels, learners treat Turkish tenses as a simple grid: -(I)yor is "the present continuous," -Ir is "the aorist," -mAktA is "the formal one." That grid gets you to B2. At C2 it falls apart, because the choice among these three for the same real-world event is simultaneously about aspect (how the action is viewed in time) and register (how formal the utterance is) — and the two axes interact. A native writer choosing among artıyor, artmakta, and artar for "rises/increases" is making a stylistic and a semantic decision at once. This page is about hearing that double signal, and about the perfective nuance that -mIş olmak layers on top. The individual forms have their own pages; here the subject is the contrasts between them.
The three faces of "is happening"
Take a single event — prices going up — and watch the same fact change colour across the three forms.
Fiyatlar artıyor.
Prices are rising. (neutral, ongoing — the default in speech and most writing)
Fiyatlar artmakta.
Prices are rising. (formal/written ongoing — news, reports, officialese)
Fiyatlar artar.
Prices rise / prices go up (as a rule). (timeless/generic — a general truth, not this moment)
All three are grammatical; none is interchangeable without consequence. -(I)yor views the action as ongoing right now and is register-neutral — the unmarked choice. -mAktA views the same ongoing action but flags the utterance as formal, written, authoritative; in casual speech it sounds absurdly stiff. -Ir (the aorist) steps out of the present moment altogether: artar is not "are rising now" but "go up, as a general fact" — a timeless, characterising statement. The aspectual difference (ongoing vs generic) and the register difference (-mAktA's formality) are layered, and C2 control means reading both.
| Form | Aspect | Register | "increase" |
|---|---|---|---|
| -(I)yor | ongoing, this period | neutral (speech + writing) | artıyor |
| -mAktA(dIr) | ongoing, this period | formal / written / authoritative | artmakta(dır) |
| -Ir / -Ar | generic, timeless, characterising | neutral; also formal in definitions | artar |
-(I)yor vs -Ir: the aspectual divide
The genuine aspectual contrast — independent of register — is between -(I)yor and -Ir. -(I)yor anchors the event to the present interval (it is happening, or happening these days). -Ir lifts the event out of time into a habit, a disposition, a law, or a characterising trait. The clearest test: a single occurrence in progress can only be -(I)yor; a defining generalisation prefers -Ir.
Su 100 derecede kaynar.
Water boils at 100 degrees (a timeless law — aorist -Ar).
Bak, su kaynıyor, çayı koyabilirsin.
Look, the water's boiling — you can put the tea in (this very moment — continuous -(I)yor).
Annem her sabah erken kalkar.
My mother gets up early every morning (habitual trait — aorist -Ar).
Annem şu an kahvaltı yapıyor.
My mother is having breakfast right now (ongoing — continuous -(I)yor).
This contrast is treated at length on the choosing -(I)yor vs -Ir page; the point here is that it is a pure aspect distinction, with no register dimension — both forms are at home in speech and writing alike.
-(I)yor vs -mAktA: the register divide
The contrast between -(I)yor and -mAktA is, by contrast, almost pure register. They share aspect — both are imperfective, ongoing-over-the-present — and differ on formality. -mAktA (usually -mAktAdIr with the assertive copula) is the present of journalism, science, law, and bureaucracy; -(I)yor is the present of everything else. Choosing -mAktA in a chat message, or -(I)yor in a court ruling, is a register error, not a tense error.
Araştırma, buzulların hızla erimekte olduğunu göstermektedir.
The research shows that the glaciers are melting rapidly (formal: erimekte, göstermektedir).
Ya, buzullar hızla eriyor diyorlar, korkunç.
Yeah, they say the glaciers are melting fast — terrifying (neutral/spoken: eriyor).
Söz konusu madde, on sekiz yaşından küçükleri kapsamamaktadır.
The article in question does not cover those under eighteen (legal register: kapsamamaktadır).
The two sentences about glaciers report the identical event; only the register dial has turned. This is why -mAktA is best learned not as a fourth present tense but as -(I)yor in formal clothing — a point developed on the formal present -mAktA(dIr) page.
The aorist as a register move too
One subtlety competitors miss: the aorist -Ir is not only a generic-aspect form; in formal definitions and rules it doubles as a register-marked choice. Dictionary definitions, scientific laws, and instructions favour the aorist precisely because they characterise rather than narrate. So -Ir can be both "timeless aspect" and "the definitional register" at once.
Üçgen, üç kenarı olan bir geometrik şekildir; iç açıları toplamı 180 derece eder.
A triangle is a geometric shape with three sides; its interior angles sum to 180 degrees (definitional aorist eder).
Bu ilaç, ateşi düşürür ve ağrıyı hafifletir.
This medicine lowers fever and relieves pain (characterising aorist — a property of the drug, not an event in progress).
-mIş olmak: layering perfective on top
The three forms above are all imperfective (they view the action as ongoing or general). To add a perfective nuance — "to have already done / to end up having done," the action complete and its result relevant — Turkish stacks -mIş olmak onto the verb. This is not the evidential -mIş of hearsay; here -mIş + olmak expresses a completed action viewed as an accomplished state, often a future-perfect or a "by then, X will be done" idea.
Yarın bu saatlerde sınavı çoktan bitirmiş olurum.
By this time tomorrow I'll have already finished the exam (-mIş olmak = future perfect, completed-and-done).
Bu raporu okursan, konuyu büyük ölçüde anlamış olursun.
If you read this report, you'll have largely understood the topic (completed result of reading).
Projeyi zamanında teslim ederek sözümüzü tutmuş olduk.
By delivering the project on time, we kept our word (we ended up having kept it — accomplished state).
The contrast with a plain past is real: bitirdim "I finished" simply reports the event, while bitirmiş oldum / olurum frames it as a completed accomplishment whose result stands. At C2 this lets you mark not just when but that-it-is-now-done.
Common mistakes
❌ Şu an su kaynar, çayı koy.
Incorrect aspect — for an event happening at this instant you need the continuous, not the generic aorist.
✅ Şu an su kaynıyor, çayı koy.
The water's boiling right now — put the tea in.
❌ Selam, ne yapmaktasın? Ben film izlemekteyim.
Incorrect register — -mAktA in casual chat is absurdly stiff; use neutral -(I)yor.
✅ Selam, ne yapıyorsun? Ben film izliyorum.
Hi, what are you doing? I'm watching a film.
❌ Bu ilaç ateşi düşürüyor (as a label describing what the drug does in general).
Marked — -(I)yor describes an event in progress; a general property/definition takes the aorist.
✅ Bu ilaç ateşi düşürür.
This medicine lowers fever (characterising property — aorist).
❌ Yarın bu saatlerde sınavı bitiriyorum (meaning 'I'll have finished by then').
Incorrect — the continuous can't express a completed-by-then state; use -mIş olmak.
✅ Yarın bu saatlerde sınavı bitirmiş olurum.
By this time tomorrow I'll have finished the exam.
Key takeaways
- For one ongoing event, -(I)yor (neutral) and -mAktA(dIr) (formal/written) share aspect and differ only in register; -Ir differs in aspect, viewing the event as timeless/generic.
- Diagnose in two steps: aspect first (ongoing vs generic → -(I)yor/-mAktA vs -Ir), then register (neutral vs formal → -(I)yor vs -mAktA).
- The aorist -Ir is both a generic-aspect form and the definitional/instructional register (dictionary entries, laws, drug actions).
- -mIş olmak layers a perfective/accomplished nuance on top — "to have (by then) done" — distinct from the evidential -mIş and from the plain past.
- Native-like control means matching the form to meaning and register simultaneously; the common English-speaker fault is choosing aspect correctly but being register-blind (e.g. -mAktA in chat).
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Aspect: How Turkish Slices TimeB2 — How Turkish distributes aspect across tenses, auxiliaries and converbs — the -(I)yor vs -Ir split, perfect -mIş olmak, and lexical-aspect compounds.
- The Formal Present -mAktA(dIr)C1 — The written, authoritative present-progressive -mAktA / -mAktAdIr — a register-marked equivalent of -(I)yor built on the locative of the -mAk infinitive.
- -(I)yor vs -(A/I)r: Now vs GenerallyA2 — How to choose between the Turkish present continuous and the aorist — and why it is not the same split as English continuous vs simple present.
- Academic and Scientific StyleC1 — The grammar of scholarly Turkish — the formal present -mAktAdIr, assertive -DIr, impersonal passives, and the heavy nominalization that makes academic prose impersonal and dense.